Réforme foncière et accueil des investisseurs à Madagascar : l’ambivalence de la politique foncière

Since 2005, lots of agricultural land based investments have been announced in Madagascar. Since the same date, a new land reform has been implemented. This reform organizes the decentralisation of land management and legally recognizes the local customary rights. In 2015, ten years later, the question is to know if this land reform has hindered or eased the land investments and, backward, if the investors? land demand has impacted on the State land management. The article demonstrates that the land reform, through its laws, institutions and tools, has not impacted on investors? land access because the land reform and the investors have targeted different territories and involved different networks of actors. The article underlines that, to the contrary, the investors? land demand has create incentives for the land administration to not promote the land reform but to move backward by claiming all the land as State owned land and by strengthening the centralization of land management. The Malagasy case shows that the key issue to regulate land investment is not only the formalisation of land rights but also the actual level of decentralisation and inclusivity of land management.